New online archive launched to celebrate more than 20 years of the Liberty Festival and the UK’s disability arts scene

• The Liberty Digital Guide, a new online exhibition celebrating two decades of the Mayor of London’s Liberty Festival and the UK’s disability arts scene, goes live today.
• For the first time in its more than 20-year history, Liberty’s radical, intersectional and joyful legacy is brought together in a free-to-use Digital Guide hosted on Bloomberg Connects.

• Curated by Dr Linda Rocco, the collection features work by renowned artists including Yinka Shonibare CBE, Jason Wilsher-Mills, Liz Carr, Suzanne Alleyne and Julie Fernandez.

A groundbreaking new online exhibition has been launched on International Day of Persons with Disabilities to celebrate two decades of the Mayor of London’s Liberty Festival and the UK’s disability arts scene.

The new digital guide on the Bloomberg Connects app showcases some of the highlights of the Mayor’s flagship disability arts festival and the incredible artistic talent across the UK.

Since its inception in 2003, Liberty has platformed some of the most exciting disabled creatives, bringing the work of Deaf Rave, Graeae, Touretteshero, Candoco, The Vacuum Cleaner, and many more to audiences across London and the UK. The festival has become a key moment in the cultural calendar for London’s disability arts sector and has since been hosted in each London Borough of Culture since the programme began 2017.

Now, for the first time, materials relating to the festival’s history are available in one place, offering a rich resource for audiences, researchers, and future cultural innovators. The digital guide is accessible by design, including features such as screen reader support, zoom, font size adjustment, transcripts, subtitles, alt-text, audio description, along with multilingual capabilities available through Google Translate - ensuring that everyone can experience the stories and artworks that have shaped this vibrant cultural movement.

The Liberty Digital Guide has been curated by Dr Linda Rocco, a London-based contemporary art curator who previously produced Liberty Festival in 2022 and features the work of acclaimed creatives including Yinka Shonibare CBE, Jason Wilsher-Mills, Liz Carr and Suzanne Alleyne.

In total, the collection features over 250 items including images, videos, and maps of Liberty Festival and a history of The Disability Arts Movement, co-curated with NDACA (National Disability Arts Collection and Archive). There are also stories exploring climate justice, sensory art, dance, activism and more, artist spotlights on pioneers such as Sally Booth and Deaf Men Dancing, and immersive experiences like Breathing Room by Anna Berry and Sanctuary Café by David Johnson.

The exhibition has been made possible through the Bloomberg Connects Partnership.  The collection is hosted on ‘Bloomberg Connects’, a free arts and culture app that brings audiences to world-class institutions virtually.   

Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries, said: “Liberty Festival has championed disabled creatives for more than two decades, providing a wonderful showcase of talent and creativity. The festival has continuously pushed artistic boundaries and forged a legacy of inclusion within the arts. This new digital collection means that this inspiring work will be accessible to a wider audience and live on as we build a fairer, more inclusive London for everyone."

Dr Linda Rocco, Curator and Researcher said: 'Bringing together these dispersed materials revealed a vital cultural and political history scattered across time, places, and institutions. This guide preserves not just individual moments, but a collective movement that has fundamentally shaped how we think about art and access. It's been a privilege to make these histories accessible to wider audiences and available for future research.’

Yinka Shonibare CBE, Artist said: “The UK is home to some exceptional artists and for more than 20 years the Mayor’s Liberty Festival has helped to shine a light on a huge range of artistic talent. It’s a festival that is all about inclusivity and it is great that this work is now available online, helping to increase access and broaden audiences.”